Awards, Honors, News, and Kudos

2009

• Gail Ashley has been selected to direct SAS' Junior Faculty Workshop for 2009/10 (6/13/09)

• EPS business manager, Johanny Zabala has successfully completes Rutger's HR Academic Personnel Certificate program (6/17/09)

• EPS Graduate student Morgan Schaller is awarded an SEPM student research award (5/29/09)

• Looks like we might have missed this one in February... Nathan Yee is recipient of the European Association for Geochemistry, 2009 Houtermans’ Medal, awarded to a junior researcher whose contributions to geochemistry are considered to be exceptional (for more info go to http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/rutgers-professor-aw-20090218)

• Sara Mana received a Pre-dissertation Award of $ 2,000 from the Graduate School NB for field work in Tanzania.

• Later, on the same day she received her GSA award Kelsey Bitting received a Graduate School of New Brunswick special study award ($750). That's a good day!
  
• The Geological Society of America made graduate student awards to Kelsey Bitting, in the amount of $1770, for her optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating project and to Morgan Schaller, in the amount of $3540, for isotopic studies on the Newark Supergroup.
  
• Nathan Yee will host a workshop on “Ground Water Chemistry” for the International Water Issues Forum on Wednesday, March 25th at the Rutgers Student Center.

• Alex Nikulin and Ben Marshall (undergrad major) have both been awarded $850 for attending a bi-annual meeting of the EarthScope (www.earthscope.org).  The money should cover significant fractions of the costs of their travel to Idaho, in May.  Alex and Ben will present a poster on the work they are doing together, investigating crustal structure of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington.

• Kudos to Peter Rona and Karen Bemis for an NSF grant "Collaborative Research (Rutgers with Applied Physics Lab-University of Washington): Acoustic Instrumentation for Imaging and Quantifying Hydrothermal Flow in NEPTUNE Canada Regional Cabled Observatory at Main Endeavour Field, Juan de Fuca Ridge"

• Martha Withjack and Roy Schlische were awarded an NSF grant from EAR! “The National Science Foundation hereby awards a grant of $205,400 to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey for support of ‘The Influence of Pre-existing Zones of Weakness on the 3D Geometry and Evolution of Extensional Faults and Folds,’ under the direction of Martha Withjack, Roy W. Schlische.”

• Nate Yee receives the Houterman medal! On behalf of the European Association for Geochemistry, I am honored to inform you that you have been selected as the Houtermans’ medalist for the year 2009.  Congratulations for this well deserved honor.  The Houtermans’ Medal is awarded annually by the EAG to a scientist no more than 35 years of age who has made exceptional contributions to Geochemistry. It is named in honor of Friedrich Georg Houtermans, a Dutch-Austrian-German physicist. This significant honor is based on a critical assessment of the scope and impact of scientific contributions; the selection process is highly competitive and many outstanding candidates are considered.

• Paul Falkowski and Matt Johnson (a post-doc in Paul's lab) were awarded an NSF grant for their proposal entitled "Understanding how global warming will select for zooxanthellae phenotypes."

• Paul Falkowski has been asked to give the 10th annual Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture for the National Academy of Sciences.

2008

• Alissa Henza received a travel grant for £400 (~$800) to attend the Fault Zones conference at the Geological Society of London in September.

• Congratulations to Mike Durcanin and Martha Withjack who arranged donation of a major piece of software (~500 k$) from Schlumberger. Schlumberger's Petrel exploration software allows for the integration of geophysics, geology, and reservoir engineering - in the same earth model. The Petrel seismic interpretation module combines the rigor of interpreting in 2D with the visual and performance benefits that only 3D volume interpretation can provide. The software provides a unique interpretation environment unified with geology, reservoir modeling, and reservoir engineering domains, giving the ability for rapid 2D & 3D seismic interpretation and visualization from large scale regional exploration and facies modeling to small scale fracture modeling and fault analysis.

• The Rutgers Board of Governors has promoted Carl Swisher to Professor I.

• Svetlana Mizintseva received an ED PICOU Fellowship Grant:
  On behalf of the GCSSEPM Foundation and trustees, I am pleased to let you know that you have been awarded a fellowship grant to the amount of $5000.00. This is the first time we have awarded above our stated amount and it is because we believe in your ability and the importance of the project. We wanted to insure that you had adequate travel and field work money. We are pleased to support your work.

• George McGhee was elected a member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria, by vote of the General Assembly of the KLI .

• Dr. Vadim Levin has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences of SAS.

• Alex Nikulin received, for the second time, 2 months worth of support from an NSF-funded study and research program administered by the University of Alaska. He will spend his summer learning, and then applying, seismological methods of study active volcanoes (St. Helens in Washington State, Bezymyanny in Kamchatka). Alex will combine his work in the framework of this program with his own research, supported by an RU Graduate School travel grant. This work is in collaboration with the Russian Academy of Sciences branch in Kamchatka. In early June, Alex will travel to Portland to attend a workshop of the IRIS consortium - a seismological meeting of small size and large impact. The workshop organizers offered him $500 to offset the costs.

• GSA just announced that Mike Durcanin, Aurora Elmore, Ashley Harris, and Sam Henderson were all awarded GSA research grants! It's a sweep!

• Kudos to Alex Nikulin who received a GSNB Pre-Dissertation award to travel to the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in Petropavlovk-Kamchatsky, Russia, this summer to work with some "classified data" from long-running seismic stations. The goal of the project is to constrain the position and orientation of the subducting Pacific plate beneath the Kamchatka Peninsula using receiver function analysis of seismic data.

• The National Geographic Society just funded Marie Aubry, Bill Berggren and Christian Dupuis (and a host out of Ben Huur) for another round of geoarcheological studies in Egypt. 3 year study - one year funding at a time! Going back down dem tombs!

• Morgan Schaller was selected by the Hydrology section of the American Geophysical Union to receive an Outstanding Student Paper Award for his presentation at the 2007 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California. Morgan's presentation (Is regional groundwater flow a significant component of the water budget in a river basin?) was recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters, setting an example for fellow students and the entire AGU membership.

• Congratulations to Jim Browning who was promoted to Assistant Research Professor (from Research Associate).

• Kudos to Yair Rosenthal for news that PRF will fund his proposal "Assessing the Potential of B/Ca in Planktonic Foraminifera as a Proxy of Seawater pH: a Sediment Trap Calibration."

• Rob Sherrell was awarded a grant entitled "A coral skeleton P/Ca proxy for surface ocean phosphate: testing and calibration" by the NSF Chemical Oceanography and Marine Geology and Geophysics Programs.

• Ken Miller and Dennis Kent were awarded a three year grant entitled "Archiving and Advancing Core Curation and Database Management of ODP Legs 150X and 174AX cores: The Rutgers U.S. Atlantic Margin Core Repository" from the NSF Marine Geology and Geophysics Program.

• Ken Miller, Jim Browning, Dick Olsson, and Pete Sugarman were awarded a two year grant entitled "Drilling the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary in NJ: Testing the relationship of geochemical anomalies to event beds" from the NSF Sedimentary Geology Program.

• George McGhee was chosen to be one of 18 invitees to the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, for an all-expenses-paid workshop (10-15 March 2008) on the concept of "Symmetry as a Modern Scientific Concept: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives." This invitation is a direct result of the publication of his latest book, The Geometry of Evolution.

• Keith Sproul was the second person in history to fly a hot air balloon into Meteor Crater, in Arizona. He was the first one to land a balloon at the bottom of the crater.

2007

• Hugo K. Dooner and Paul G. Falkowski were elected into the National Academy of Sciences.
• Kudos to all for a once-again exemplary teaching record for the Fall 06. In the 100- and 200-level courses, we averaged 4.3 on teaching effectiveness and 4.2 on course quality. In the 300- and 400-level courses, we averaged 4.6 on both. Overall we averaged 4.4 on teaching effectiveness and 4.3 on course quality (out of 5 possible). Top rankings were earned by graduate student Andrew Kulpecz (5.0/4.92) in Stratigraphy lab, part- time lecturer Don Monteverde (4.73/4.62) in Planet Earth, Carl Swisher (4.71/4.52) in Physical Geology, and Ying Fan Reinfelder (4.83/5.0) in Hydrogeology. Bill Gallagher won the field with a 4.93/5.0 for Paleontology. Great job to all!

• Graduate student Lauren Neitzke was awarded a K-12 Fellowship for 07-08, the Gretchen L. Blechschimidt Award for 2007 for $1500, a GSNB award for special study of $1200, and a Northeast Section of the Geological Society of America travel grant to present research titled Variations in Deep-Water Circulation on Eirik Drift from the Last Glacial Maximum to early Holocene. The Gretchen L. Blechschimidt Award is given to women in Geological Sciences who are interested in achieving a Ph.D. in the fields of Biostratigraphy and Paleoceanography.

• Undergraduate student Naya Sou was the winner of the undergraduate research symposium. She was supervised in this effort by Post-doc Bridget Wade.

• Graduate student Lauren Neitzke was awarded a K-12 Fellowship for 07-08, the Gretchen L. Blechschimidt Award for 2007 for $1500, a GSNB award for special study of $1200, and a Northeast Section of the Geological Society of America travel grant to present research titled Variations in Deep-Water Circulation on Eirik Drift from

• Alissa Henza, Ian Saginor and Aurora Elmore were awarded GSNB Conference Travel Awards.

• Ph.D. Candidate Aurora Elmore was awarded a GSNB special study award to conduct research at Cambridge University in England.

• Five members of EPS participated in the Big Chill, a 5 km run/walk to raise toys for underprivileged children on Sat. Dec. 8, 2007. The number of toys raised by RU for the kids was staggering. Dean Michael Carr made the top ten in his age category. His son Steven Carr had the best time on our team. Graduate students Pablo Ruiz, Svetlana Misintseva, and Chair Ken Miller also ran. A great time was had by all.

• Graduate student Alissa Henza was invited to participate in an ExxonMobil short course and field trip in the La Popa Basin, Monterey, Mexico, March 4-8 and has accepted an internship with BHP Billiton next summer.

• Graduate student Esteban Gazel Dondi was awarded a Graduate School Excellence in Research Award, an Excellence Fellowship, and $1500 from the Geological Society of America for his research on Mantle sources of the Central American Volcanic Arc: The Influence of the Galapagos Plume and the Relation to the Caribbean Large Igneous Province.

• Graduate student Joe Boesenberg, along with our ex-student Harold Connolly chaired a session on Chondrules and their Formation at the 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Convention in Houston. They both gave talks, along with our post-doc Scott Whattam.

• Post-doc Bridget Wade accepted a position as an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics of Texas A&M University in College Station, TX.

• The Board of Governors announced the promotion of Roy Schlische to Professor I.

• Ken Able and Peter Rona, Co-PIs, received a $150,000 grant to study Essential Fish Habitat in Hudson Submarine Canyon Head, from the NOAA Undersea Research Program, plus 16 days on NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Eagle Ray, March 2007 with a cruise in August 2007 (Rona 90%). Peter served as chief scientist on the cruise and lead author on a paper reporting the cruise results at the AGU Fall Meeting. The results reveal a dynamic interface between continental shelf and slope water masses in the water column and apparent gas hydrate structures and methane venting on the seafloor.

• Research Professor Miriam E. Katz accepted a position in the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

• President McCormick awarded Peter Sugarman a Part-Time Lecturer Activities Fund award for $250 for his presentation: Hydrostratigraphy of the NJ Coastal Plain; Sequence and Facies predict continuity of aquifers at the 2006 GSA annual meeting.

• The U.S. Advisory Committee (USAC) for scientific ocean drilling has officially approved the appointment of Professor Yair Rosenthal to the IODP Science Steering and Evaluation Panel (SSEP), effective 1 October 2007 through 30 September 2010. This is the lead evaluation panel for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program.

• Distinguished Visiting Professor William A. Berggren was elected one of the 25 most influential Dickinsonians (i.e., graduates of Dickinson College) in America, along with Judge John Jones who wrote the decision a few years ago keeping intelligent design out of the classroom.

• Professor George McGhee had one of the top cited papers in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology: G.R. McGhee Jr., P.M. Sheehan, D.J. Bottjer, M.L. Droser, Ecological ranking of Phanerozoic biodiversity crises: Ecological and taxonomic severities are decoupled (2004) 211 (3-4), pp. 289-297.

• Professor Gail M. Ashley was named co-chair of the NSF GeoVision Working Group. This is a committee comprised of representatives from the three Divisions of the Geosciences Directorate and charged with writing a plan that will provide a comprehensive view of the geosciences and vision for the future. The plan is expected to serve the Directorate for the next 5-10 years as it interacts with NSF management, other government agencies, and the research and education communities.

• The Exobiology program NASA awarded Paul Falkowski $450,000 for his three-year proposal on Biosignatures in evolving planetary atmospheres.

• Professor Ying Fan Reinfelder and Paul Falkowski, who each received Academic Excellence Grants from Rutgers. Ying's project, Global Wetland Distribution and Climate Change: A Seed Project, has been selected to receive an award of $51,000 from the 2006-07 Academic Excellence Fund (AEF). Paul received funding toward the Rutgers University Energy Institute.

• Professors Ken Miller and Dennis Kent were awarded a three-year grant from NSF/OCE for $150,000 for Archiving and Advancing Core Curation and Database Management of ODP Legs 150X and 174AX cores: The Rutgers U.S. Atlantic Margin Core Repository.

• NASA awarded Professor Roger Hewins and Research Associate Jerry Delaney $550,000 toward the cost of a new microprobe analytical facility. Roger and Jerry were PI's (along with co-PI's Harold Connolly and Michael Weisberg of Kingsborough) on the NASA effort.

2006

• Dennis Kent was elected into the National Academy of Sciences.
• Professors Peter Rona and Kenneth Miller were elected Fellows of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Each year no more than 0.1% of the AGU membership may be elected Fellows.
• Distinguished lecture by Professor Gail Ashley In recognition of Earth Day, the Earth Science Division of the Geoscience Directorate scheduled a lecture entitled "Geologists Probe the Harsh Environment of Early Humans, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania."

• Kenneth Miller was appointed to the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Science Advisory Structure Executive Committee (SASEC), the highest advisory committee within IODP, providing long-range planning and programmatic overview. There are 3 U.S. members, 3 Japanese members, and 2 EU members.
• Professor Kenneth Miller was also co-convenor of and presentor of a paper at the first International Conference on Sea-level Change held in Giens, France and dubbed "Sealaix06"
• Several faculty members had high-profile papers published in Science and Nature and other high-profile venues:
  1. Herzberg, Petrology and thermal structure of the Hawaiian plume from Mauna Kea volcano, Nature.

  2. Behrenfeld, Worthington,Sherrell, et al., Controls on tropical Pacific ocean productivity revealed through nutrient stress diagnostics, Nature.

  3. George McGhee's latest book, The Geometry Of Evolution: Adaptive Landscapes And Theoretical Morphospaces, was published by Cambridge University Press, England.?~@?Like, Norris, Herrle, Wilson, Coxall, Lear, Shackleton, Tripati, Wade, The Heartbeat of the Oligocene Climate System, Science.

Graduate student awards 2006

• Kelsey Bitting was awarded a 2006 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. This is a very prestigious award that provides 3 years of full support.

• Don Monteverde was awarded a Part-Time Lecturer Professional Activities Fund Award of $400 for his presentation at Fall AGU.

• Graduate students Alissa Henza and Fara Lindsay were highlighted in an article in Cross Section, the GSNB magazine.

• Graduate students Ryan Earley, Ashley Harris, and Andrew A. Kulpecz were each awarded a Chevron Internship.

• Graduate student Svetlana Misintseva was awarded a Chronos internship

• Graduate student Andrew A. Kulpecz was awarded a DOSECC (Drilling Observation and Sampling of the Earth's Continental Crust) Internship award of $3,900 for summer 2006 http://www.dosecc.org/html/newsletter.html

• Lauren Nietzke was awarded an internship with Buried Hill Petroleum

• Aurora Elmore was awarded an internship with HESS.

• Ashley Harris awarded an ExxonMobil Fellowship.

• During the summer of 2006, Ryan J. Earley, a graduate student in geophysics, worked as an Earth Science Intern with Chevron International Exploration & Production in Houston, TX. Ryan joined the IndoAsia Deepwater Development Group and completed a modern-analogue study on a series of deepwater turbidite systems in the Makassar Strait using high-resolution 3D seismic data and downhole log data.

• Aurora Elmore, Andrew Kulpecz, and Lauren Nietzke were invited to ExxonMobil Integrated Basin Analysis Field Course in the Big Horn Basin, WY.

• Morgan Schaler received a GSA travel grant for $1,000 to do preliminary field work in Kenya.
  
  
• Professor II Dennis V. Kent was awarded the 2006 European Geophysical Union Petrus Peregrinus Medal http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/awards/medallists/_2006/petrus_peregrinus.htm
• On Nov. 25, 2005, Science published an invited review paper The Phanerozoic Record of Global Sea-Level Change. It was written by K. Miller, M. Kominz (Western Michigan), J. Browning (Rutgers), J. Wright (Rutgers), G. Mountain (Rutgers), M. Katz (Rutgers), P. Sugarman (NJGS), B. Cramer (Oregon, former RU graduate student), N. Christie-Blick (LDEO) and S. Pekar (Queens, former RU graduate student). The Science paper received significant press coverage. A highlight is a radio program "Turning Tides_ The Growing Threat or Rising Seas" as part of the program "A World of Possibilities" a Mainstream Media Project Radio Production. Founded in 1995, the Mainstream Media Project is a nonprofit public education and strategic communications organization that uses the mainstream broadcast media to raise public awareness about new approaches to longstanding issues. http://www.aworldofpossibilities.com/ The episode Turning Tides features segments on sea-level rise endangering Vanuatu, a segment interviewing Miller on the prospects of sea-level rise, and a segment on Holland's experience using engineering to address sea-level rise. It can be listened to online http://www.aworldofpossibilities.com/ or by clicking here [mp3]

• On January 21, 2006, the American Geophysical Union announced that Peter Rona was elected as a Fellow.

• Bridget Wade, a post doc jointly in our department and IMCS, just received the following good news
  1. She received an award of $15,000 from the Lindemann Trustl
  2. She received the Sylvester Bradley Award from the Paleontological Association to undertake fieldwork in Puerto Rico and Trinidad for 1000 pounds;
  3. She will have her session the a topical session for the 2006 GSA Annual Meeting on "Extinction, Dwarfing and the Lilliput Effect" sponsored by the Paleontological Society
• Undergraduate Michael Durcanin received $780 from the GSA, He received it for The petrology and petrography of middle Pleistocene volcanics; Kapthurin Formation, Kenya in a project directed by Gail M. Ashley.

• raduate student Ian Saginor was awarded $2000 by the GSNB It was awarded to him for his Pre-dissertation Research.
• Graduate student Sam Henderson was awarded $24,953 by US Science Support It was awarded for a project titled "The Accumulation History on Eirik Drift during the Quaternary: Implications from Grain Size Measurements"; the project is in collaboration with Jim Wright.
• Graduate student Louise Bolge received an honorable mention on her paper at AGU. http://margins.wustl.edu/MARGINS_Prize/MARGINSPrize2004.html

• Graduate student Godwin Mollel was awarded a Baldwin Fellowship from the Leakey Foundation for 2005-2006.

• Graduate student Alissa Henza received support to attend a workshop of the IRIS consortium She will attend the annual workshop in June. She also received $1200 GSA Graduate Research Grant from the Geological Society of America.

• Graduate student Alicia Kahn accepted an internship from Chevron. She will work in the Stratigraphy and Biostatistics team in summer 2005. She also received a $2000 scholarship from Chevron for this year's research, and was awarded the John Mason Clark 1877 Fellowship in Paleontology and Geology.

• Bridget Wade has accepted a post doc at Rutgers' Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. She will work with Yair Rosenthal doing Mg/Ca and integrating these studies with oxygen and carbon isotopic studies with Jim Wright, Mimi Katz, and Ken Miller. Bridget will also take the lead on the Oligocene planktonic foraminiferal atlas, continuing on the tradition of Olsson et al.’s Paleocene and Eocene atlases.

• James D. Wright was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

• A paper by George McGhee et al. made the #1 spot in the "Top 25 Hottest Articles" It was in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology during the last quarter (October-December) of the year 2004: Ecological ranking of Phanerozoic biodiversity crises: ecological and taxonomic severities are decoupled http://top25.sciencedirect.com/?journal_id=00310182. George
  gave an invited lecture, "A Spatial Approach to Evolutionary Constraint", at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Vienna, Austria, where he was in residence as a Fellow.

• Martha Oliver Withjack was a keynote speaker at an international research conference. It was sponsored by the Geological Society of London, Compressional deformation within passive margins: nature, causes & effects, October 19-20, 2005.

• Paul Falkowski was named a Rutgers Board of Governors Professor.
• Gail M. Ashley was named as President–elect of the American Geological Institute (AGI).
  The AGI is an umbrella organization for nearly 50 scientific societies and a geoscience community of more than 100,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Fundamental missions of AGI are the design of rigorous science curricula for K-12 education in the US and to provide geological information to federal and state governments for support of policy decisions. Ashley is looking forward to the challenges of the position. She plans to head up a campaign to (1) counter the growing movement from religion-based groups to legislate the teaching of unscientific alternatives to the theory of evolution, and (2) support thorough investigations of the role of humans in global climate change and report these findings without yielding to current political fashions and pressures.

• Dennis Kent was awarded Docteur Honoris Causa from the Institute de Physique du Globe de Paris. Previous award winners include Don Anderson, Stan Hart, Dan McKenzie, Keith O'Nions, Steve Sparks, and Don Turcotte. This very high honor was recognized by a special presentation at the Sorbonne in December.

• Ken Miller was selected as a JOI/USSAC Distinguished Lecturer for 2006-2007.
  The Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI) appointed Gregory Mountain to the Science Planning Committee (SPC) of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) and Ken Miller to the Science Planning and Policy Oversight Committee (SPPOC) of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. SPC provides advice to IODP Management International. SPPOC is the highest-level advisory committee within IODP, providing long-range planning and programmatic overview.

  In addition to the two papers highlighted above (Miller et al., 2005; Falkowski et al., 2005), several faculty members had high-profile papers published in Science and Nature:
  

  1. D.V. Kent and L. Tauxe, Corrected Late Triassic Latitudes for Continents Adjacent to the North Atlantic (Science 307:240-244) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5707/240?etoc
     
  2. Thibault, Y. Rosenthal, et al., Stable sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific warm pool over the past 1.75 million years, 433, 294 - 298 Nature;
     
  3. C. Herzberg, Mantle geochemistry: Big lessons from little droplet

• Dennis Kent was elected into the National Academy of Sciences and will receive the Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellent in Research for the Year 2003-2004.

• Dennis Kent was awarded the Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geological Society of America for 2003. Together with the Penrose Medal, the Day Medal is the highest honor awarded by GSA, the largest and arguably most prestigious earth science society. The award is for "outstanding distinction in contributing to geologic knowledge through the application of physics and chemistry to the solution of geologic problems". In 2003 he was also awarded the Vening Meinesz Medal.  This award is from the Faculty of Earth Sciences at Utrecht University and the Faculties of Geodesy and Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology joint collaboration: the Vening Meinesz Research School of Geodynamics (VMSG).  It is one of the highest honors in geodynamics.
• Jennifer Elder Brady and Mark Baum awarded Grants-in-Aid by the AAPG

• Jennifer Elder Brady and Mark Baum, who were awarded Grants-in-Aid by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) for their research.

• Roy Schlische and Martha Withjack, who were just awarded a grant "Collaborative Research: Comparison of Numerical, Physical and Natural Extensional Fault Systems') submitted for the December 1, 2003  deadline to EAR.

• Paul Falkowski was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The AAAS, founded by Samuel Adams and others in 1780, is not to be confused with the upstart Philadelphia-base organization with the same acronym, which publishes Science.

• Greg Mountain became a member of USSAC (United States Science Advistory Committee) that determines funding for U.S. participation in IODP.

• Ken Miller was elected Vice Chair of DOSECC and co-chair of the newly constituted DOSECC Science Planning Committee. 
  >DOSECC stand for Drilling, Observation, and Sampling of the Earth's Continental Crust.  Rutgers joined in 2000.  Fifty other organizations (mostly universities) are members.  He was also appointed as a member of the IODP Science Planning Committee.

• Rutgers became a member of the IRIS Consortium and Vadim Levin was appointed the BoD Member for RU. Two of the nine ISI highly cited researchers at Rutgers are in our department: Paul Falkowski and Dennis Kent

• The University of Athens will award both Marie-Pierre Aubry and William Berggren Doctorate Honoris Causa in the spring of 2003.

  Students' accomplishments
  Graduate student Lesley Patrick has been accepted into the 2003 International Geobiology Course hosted by the University of southern California's Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island, CA. This six week course focuses on how biology interacts with the environment and how these interactions have shaped the evolution of the earth. Lauren Neitzke, an undergraduate major in our department, has been accepted into the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory's summer intern program; she will work with Rutgers alumnus Steve Pekar. Lauren will be doing an honors thesis here next academic year.

  Miller receives Rosenstiel Award
  "The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS) of the University of Miami announced today [2/14/02] that Kenneth G. Miller was awarded the 2003 Rosenstiel Award.
  
  "The Rosenstiel Award recognizes outstanding contributions to marine science, including oceanographically relevant aspects of atmospheric science and fundamental developments in ocean engineering. To accommodate the various disciplines on which ocean science is based, the award is presented on a rotating basis for achievements in six broad disciplinary areas: meteorology and physical oceanography; marine geology and geophysics, marine and atmospheric chemistry; marine biology and fisheries; applied marine physics, and marine affairs and policy.
  
  "The purpose of the Rosenstiel Award is to honor a scientist who in the last decade has made a significant and growing impact in the field. The award shall not go to well-known scientists who have already made a name for themselves and have harvested other awards."

  Withjack is President of Structure/Tectonics Division
  Martha Oliver Withjack is president of the Geological Society of America's Structural Geology and Tectonics division, which is GSA's largest division.  Her term is from October 2002 to October 2003.
  
  New fluorescent mineral exhibit opens at Rutgers Geology Museum
  The new Anne and Milton Hershhorn Fluorescent Mineral Exhibit at the Rutgers Geology Museum was dedicated on September 16 during a ceremony and reception attended by Rutgers President Francis L. Lawrence, geologists, mineralogists and Hershhorn family and friends. The exhibit opened to the public on September 16. The fluorescent minerals, most of which are from New Jersey, are part of the 6,000-specimen lifetime mineral collection of Milton Hershhorn, who donated his collection to the museum last year, shortly before both he and his wife, Anne, passed away. The spectacular exhibit is designed to display and explain fluorescence in minerals, a phenomenon in which specimens emit vivid colors of visible light when they are exposed to ultraviolet rays. The permanent exhibit, which replaces a smaller fluorescent minera display, uses modern presentation technology while complementing the museum's Victorian sense of place and gas-light architecture.
  
  "My father was as dedicated to education as he was to fluorescent minerals. We are most pleased that my father's collection will continue to intrigue students through their beauty as art objects and through the scientific stories they tell," said Mark Hershhorn, son of the collector and member of the Rutgers Board of Overseers. Milton Hershhorn's own interest in minerals began with an educational outreach program at the Brooklyn Children's Museum in the 1930s. Last year, he expressed hope that his collection at the Rutgers Geology Museum would inspire interest in minerals among current and future generations.
  
  "Minerals and fossils have a unique ability to capture the imagination and drive intellectual curiosity," said R.William Selden, museum curator. Selden explained that fluorescence in minerals occurs when ultraviolet light waves, invisible to the human eye, are absorbed by a mineral's atoms, and then emitted back to the viewer in multiple steps. The steps may include visible light, and if a step includes just one wavelength of visible light, the viewer will perceive the result as vivid color. The minerals in the Hershhorn exhibit emit mostly brilliant red and green.
  
  In its 131-year history, the Rutgers Geology Museum has provided the public with direct and personal contac with scientists through tours, publications, educational outreach, open houses and the Museum Friends' Lecture Series. It is located at 85 Somerset St., New Brunswick, in Geology Hall on the historic Old Queen's quadrangle of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Hours are Mon. 1 to 4 p.m. and Tues. through Fri. 9 a.m. to noon. Call for weekend dates and hours, (732) 932-7243. For more information, visit the museum's web site: <http://geology.rutgers.edu/museum.shtml>. [Text by Bill Haduch, Rutgers University Media Relations.]

  Ashley awarded the Association of Women Geoscientist Outstanding Educator Award
  Gail M. Ashley is the 2002 recipient of the Association of Women Geoscientists' Outstanding Educator Award; Gail received the award at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver.

  Katz is recipient of Curtis Award
  Miriam E. ("Mimi")  Katz is the 2002 recipient of the Geological Society of America's Doris M. Curtis Memorial Fund for Women in Science Award. This award is given for Ph.D. research with significant impact in the geosciences. Mimi received the award at the GSA Annual Meeting in Denver.

  Rona and Kingman receive grant
  The Rutgers Undergraduate Research Fellows Program awarded a $1500 grant to Professor Peter Rona and undergraduate Research Fellow Kyle E. Kingman for their project  "Cenozoic Record and Controls of Slope Stability on the New Jersey Continental Margin."

  Feibel granted tenure
  Craig Feibel has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, effective July, 1, 2002. Craig holds a joint appointment in the Geological Sciences and Anthropology departments.

  Class of 2002 accomplishments
  The Department of Geological Sciences is pleased to announce that the 2002 Vinton Gwinn prize is awarded to Amber Granger.  She will receive $150 and her name will be added to the plaque in the Faculty-Student lounge.  The award was established in memory of Vinton Gwinn (RC '56), a professor who died doing fieldwork and was widely recognized for his work.  Originally established for the best undergraduate student paper in Appalachian geology, the award is considered annually for outstanding undergraduates engaged in independent research.  Amber will be graduated from Cook College in May 2002 when she will be awarded Highest Honors from the Department of Geological Sciences.  She will continue on as a graduate student in the structural geology group here at Rutgers. *** Holly Peterson will be graduated from Rutgers College in May when she will be awarded Honors from the Department of Geological Sciences.  Paul Errico will be graduated from Rutgers College in May when he  will be awarded High Honors from the Department of Geological Sciences. Two other top students, Daniel Ksepka and Bernice Rosensweig, will also graduate in May.  Although they did not complete our department honors program (and hence are not eligible under our rules for departmental honors), they both have distinguished themselves as top-notch students.  Dan will continue his studies in the Ph.D. program at Columbia University's Earth and Environmental Sciences graduate program in association with the American Museum of Natural History.  Bernice will pursue graduate work in Princeton's environmental engineering program.

  Graduate students receive fellowships, grants, internships
  Ben Cramer was awarded $23,000 as a Schlanger Ocean Drilling Fellow by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions. The fellowship recognizes graduate students of unusual promise and ability to undertake research relevant to the Ocean Drilling Program. The fellowship is named for the late Seymour Schlanger, a Rutgers Geology alumnus. *** The International Association of Sedimentologists has awarded Cynthia Liutkus a $1000 grant for her Ph.D. research. It was one of only nine grants awarded. *** The Cushman Foundation of Foraminiferal Research of the Natural Museum of Natural History awarded John Hernandez a $200 grant for his research project on "Miocene (8-12 Ma) sea-level changes at Bethany Beach, DE." The award also includes a year's subscription to the Journal of Foraminiferal Research. *** Lindsay McHenry was awarded a prestigious Bevier fellowship from the Rutgers University Graduate School÷New Brunswick.  Lindsay also received a $1900 grant from the Geological Society of America for her dissertation research. *** Mark Baum began a three-month summer internship with Unocal in Houston in June 2002.

  Katz is President-Elect of NAMS
  Dr. Miriam "Mimi" Katz is the President-Elect of NAMS, the North American Micropaleontological Section of SEPM.  NAMS is the largest micropaleontological group in the world, representing a diverse array of industrial and academic micropaleontologists.

  Mountain joins faculty
  Greg Mountain, an expert on the aquisition, processing, and interpretation of seismic reflection data, joined the faculty as an associate professor. Greg will participate in three scientific cruises in 2002.

  Faculty professional service
  James S. Wright, assistant professor of paleoceanography, served on the NSF marine geology and geophysics panel in fall 2002.  Carl O. Swisher, Associate Professor of geochronology, was appointed associate editor for Journal of Human Evolution.  Carl also serves on the Editorial Board for Geology. *** Kenneth G. Miller, professor of paleoceanography, served on the NSF International Post-Docs panel in January 2002.  *** Peter Rona, professor of marine geology and geophysics, served as member of the first NOAA Ocean Exploration Program Review Panel in March 2002. *** Gail Ashley, professor of sedimentology and geomorphology, was appointed to the National Research Council's River Basin and Coastal Systems Planning Group of the Oceans Studies Board.  Gail will also serve on the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Directorate Advisory Committee.  *** Dennis Kent, professor of paleomagnetism, served on the NSF/EAR Instrumentation and Facilities panel in May 2002. He also completed a two-year term as the chair of the AGU Fellows Committee in June 2002. *** Martha Withjack, professor of structural geology, will serve on a panel advising the NSF Tectonics Program about future funding priorities. Martha is also first vice-chair of the Structural Geology and Tectonics section of the Geological Society of America.

  Ledger story profiles Sheridan's work on Monitor salvage
  Geophysics Professor Robert Sheridan made the front page of the July 17 Newark Star Ledger. The story chronicled the salvaging of the 35-ton engine of the USS Monitor, which sank off the North Carolina coast 138 years ago. In 1973, Sheridan helped locate Monitor, which rests 240 feet below the sea surface. Since then, Sheridan has been involved in efforts to recover the Civil War-era battleship. 

  Grad students receive grants
  Lindsay McHenry, a graduate student in Quaternary Studies, received  a $9321 grant from the L. S. B. Leakey Foundation for the Study of Human Origins for "Geochemical correlation of Olduvai Gorge tuffs." She also received a $1700 grant from the Geological Society of America. Lindsay is studying with Dr. Gail Ashley and Dr. Carl Swisher. Cynthia Liutkus, a graduate student in Quaternary Studies, received a $350 grant from Sigma Xi in support of her research project, "Stable isotope signatures of wetland carbonates from closed-basin systems; a new model for interpretation." Cindy is studying with Dr. Gail Ashley and Dr. Jim Wright. Jennifer Elder Brady, a graduate student with the Structure/Tectonics Group, received $350 from Sigma Xi and $1,390 from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in support of her research on "Small-scale structures as signatures of the tectonic history in the Fundy rift basin, Canada. "  Jennifer is studying with Dr. Roy Schlische and Dr. Martha Withjack.

  Ashley featured in Gaea
  Dr. Gail Ashley was recently interviewed for the Gaea, the publication of the Association for Women Geoscientists.  The article focused on Dr. Ashley's experience being a woman geoscientist in academia.

  Berggren receives honorary doctorate
  Dr. William Berggren, distinguished visiting research professor at Rutgers, was awarded the Doctorate Honoris Causal of Utrecht Unviersity. This is quite an honor because Utrecht is the leading micropaleontology center in Europe, if not the world.

  Hewins promoted to Professor II
  Dr. Roger Hewins was recently promoted to the position of Professor II, the highest academic rank for a professor at Rutgers. Dr. Hewins teaches mineralogy and graduate courses in meteoritics, and conducts research on the formation of chondritic meteorites and their implications for the origin of the solar system.

  Trotta elected to Phi Beta Kappa, receives Gwinn award
  Julie E. Trotta was elected to the Douglass Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in Spring 2001. Julie is also being awarded the Vinton Gwinn award. The award was established in memory of Vinton Gwinn (RC 56) who was killed in a collapse of a trench. Originally established for the best undergraduate student paper in Appalachian Geology, the award is considered annually for outstanding undergraduates engaged in independent research. Julie will begin graduate work at Brown University after completing her undergraduate degree in geology at Rutgers.

  Reilly receives USGS grant
  Tim Reilly and a group of U.S. Geological Survey scientists received a USGS grant to support collaborative and innovative research. Their project, "Cellular, Biochemical, and Immunological Methods Using Diatoms to Determine the Influence of Surface Water in Ground Water Systems," was one of 14 projects funded out of 250 proposals received. Reilly works for the USGS in Trenton and is completing a master's degree in our department.

  Falkowski elected AGU fellow
  Prof. Paul Falkowski, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Geological Sciences and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Studies, was elected as a fellow of the American Geophysical Union. This is especially noteworthy because only a very small fraction of AGU's membership can be elected to fellow status in any one year.

  Asteroid named for Zanda
  An asteroid discovered in 1981 by S.J. Bus was named for Brigitte Zanda in recognition of her research on the formation of chondrules, which has placed important constraints on chemical and physical processes operating in the solar nebula. Brigitte Zanda is an adjunct faculty member at Rutgers and the meteorite curator at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

  Cohen, Hewins, and Yu publish Nature paper
  Bosmat Cohen, Prof. Roger  Hewins and Dr. Yang Yu recently published the paper, "Evaporation during melting to produce chondrule textures and compositions," in the prestigious scientific journal Nature (volume 406, p. 600-602). Bosmat is a Ph.D. student and Dr. Yu is a former post-doctoral scientist in Prof. Hewins's meteoritics research group.

  Clifton hosts U.S. Secretary of State in Iceland
  Amy E. Clifton, who earned her Ph.D. in geology at Rutgers and currently holds a Fulbright Fellowship at the Nordic Volcanological Institute in Reykjavik, hosted U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright during a geological tour of Iceland on Sept. 30, 2000. The Secretary was in Iceland to announce an expanded program of scientific cooperation between the U.S. and Iceland.  Because of Amy's participation in the Fulbright program, the U.S. Ambassador to Iceland asked Amy to conduct part of the geological field trip.

  Swisher joins faculty
  Carl Swisher, an expert on geochronology and human origins, joined the Department of Geological Sciences as an associate professor.  Carl will be establishing a mass sectrometry lab for Ar⁴⁰/Ar³⁹ isotopic dating.

  Withjack is 2nd Vice Chair of Structure/Tectonics Division
  Martha Oliver Withjack, Professor of Geology at Rutgers, has been elected to a one-year term as 2nd Vice Chair of the Geological Society of America's Structural Geology and Tectonics division. SGT is GSA's largest division.  Professor Withjack will be 1st Vice Chair in 2001 and President of SGT in 2002.

  Pekar participates in ODP cruise, begins postdoc at L-DEO
  Stephen Pekar recently participated on Ocean Drilling Project Leg 198, with drilling sites south of Tasmania. Steve was invited to serve as a sedimentologist on the cruise. Steve earned his Ph.D. at Rutgers and served as a post-doctoral scientist with Ken Miller's research group. Steve recently began a post-doctoral research position at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory on a project supported by an NSF grant written by Steve and Prof. Nicholas Christie-Blick of L-DEO.

  Cassenti receives scholarship and fellowship
  Dave Cassenti has received the Delaware Valley Paleontological Society's Paul Bond Scholarship and was also awarded a K-12 Teaching Fellowship by Rutgers University. Dave is Ph.D. candidate exploring mass extinctions under the supervision of Prof. George McGhee.

  Hernandez receives scholarship
  The American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) has awarded John Hernandez the 2000 Angelo Tagliacozzo Memorial Scholarship. John, a May 2000 graduate of Rutgers College, joins the department as a master's student in Fall 2000, working with Prof. Ken Miller's research group.

  Ying Fan Reinfelder appointed hydrogeology lecturer
  Dr. Ying Fan Reinfelder has been appointed as as a Lecturer with the rank equivalent of Assistant Professor in the FAS/Geological Sciences. Dr. Fan Reinfelder will teach our undergraduate Hydrogeology and a new graduate course on Groundwater Modeling on a regular basis. Dr. Fan Reinfelder previously taught these courses as an adjunct instructor. She will also be available to advise students on research projects.

  RU Geology hosts ATSG field trip
  The annual spring field trip of the Appalachian Tectonics Study Group was hosted this year by Rutgers University. Profs. Roy Schlische and Martha Withjack led the 2-day trip to outcrops of Newark basin rocks in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Over 40 structural geologists from as far away as Texas participated in the trip. The trip was preceded by a workshop that included an interpretation and restoration of a seismic-reflection profile across the Newark basin and an examination of cores from the Newark Basin Coring Project that are now archived at Rutgers.

  Falkowski receives Excellence in Research award
  Professor Paul G. Falkowski has received the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research. He was honored for his breadth of vision and contributions in the field of biological oceanography, as well as for his advancement of the fundamental understanding of marine photosynthesis as a biophysical process. He was also praised for developing instrumentation that set the standard in variable fluorescence research and revolutionized the understanding of biogeochemistry in modern oceans. Prof. Falkowski, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Geological Sciences and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, received a citation and $1000.

  Baum receives research grants
  Mark Baum has a received a grant of $836 from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and a grant from Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, to investigate the 3-D geometry of inversion structures in the Fundy rift basin, Nova Scotia, Canada. Mark is master's student working with Profs. Schlische and Withjack's extensional tectonics research group.

  Department receives grant to set up computer-based seismic interpretation system
  The Department of Geological Sciences has received $19,941 from the Rutgers University Advisory Committee on Instructional Computing to purchase three high-end PC workstations. They will be used to run 2D/3D seismic-interpretation software, which is being donated to the department by Seismic Microtechnology. The seismic-interpretation software will be used for both teaching and research at the undergraduate and graduate level. Martha Withjack and Roy Schlische obtained the software from Seismic Microtechnology and wrote the proposal to obtain the PC's.

  Sherrell promoted to Associate Professor
  Dr. Robert Sherrell was recently promoted to the position of Associate Professor with tenure. Dr. Sherrell is an aqueous geochemist with a  joint appointment in the Institute of Marine & Coastal Studies and the Department of Geological Sciences.

  Lindsay receives Analytical Chemistry Award
  Fara Lindsay is the recipient of the Analytical Chemistry Award from the Rutgers Chemistry Department for excellence in instrumental analysis. Fara is currently pursuing a master's degree in geochemistry.

  Withjack receives Matson Award
  At the 2001 Meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in New Orleans, Prof. Martha Withjack received the George H. Matson Award given for the best oral presentation at the 2000 meeting. Dr. Withjack's presentation was "Structural History of the Northwest Shelf, Australia: An Integrated Geological, Geophysical, and Experimental Approach."

  Deocampo awarded fellowship
  Dan Deocampo was awarded a University and Bevier Fellowship for the 2000-2001 academic year. This award will allow Dan to complete his Ph.D. degree prior to starting his post-doc at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.

  Hernandez and Manburg receive Vinton Gwinn prize
  John Hernandez and Samantha Manburg have received the Vinton Gwinn Memorial Prize.  The prize was established by the Class of 1956 in the memory of Vinton Gwinn, a Rutgers graduate and geologist who lost his life in a trench collapse in Louisiana.  The prize initially was for the best paper in Appalachian geology, but evolved into an award made to the best undergraduate(s) in the department.  John will receive Honors in May when he is graduated from Rutgers College, based on his independent studies in stratigraphy (conducted under the supervision of Prof. Ken Miller).  Sam is being recognized with the Vinton Gwinn Award for her outstanding leadership, particularly as President of the Geology Club. Both John and Sam will pursue Master's degrees in geology at Rutgers in the fall.

  Ashley is NSF Earth Day distinguished lecturer
  Prof. Gail Ashley will give a lecture on "Geologists Probe the Harsh Environment of Early Humans, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania" at the National Science Foundation on Earth Day, April 26, 2000.

  Rutgers hosted NEGSA meeting
  The Department of Geological Sciences co-hosted the Northeast Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America at the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick during March 12-15, 2000. Over 700 geoscientists attended the meeting at which over 350 scientific papers were presented. Professor Robert Sheridan served as general chairman of the meeting. Professor Ken Miller was the chair of the technical program, and Professors Gail Ashley and Peter Rona coordinated the symposia. Professor Emeritus Richard Olsson presented the keynote address on the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary at the banquet.

  Rona receives Hans Pettersson Bronze Medal
  Dr. Peter Rona has been awarded the Hans Pettersson Bronze Medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. This medal is awarded periodically in recognition of a scientist conducting work "in the spirit of Hans Pettersson." Dr. Rona has organized and led teams of scientists in exploration of the deep sea floor. His work has led to the discovery of the first hot springs, associated mineral deposits and new life forms in the deep Atlantic, and the development and application of techniques to determine how hot springs affect the ocean environment.

  Falkowski receives Hutchinson Award
  Dr. Paul Falkowski, a joint faculty member in our department and IMCS, has received this year's Hutchinson Award by ASLO (American Society of Limnology and Oceanography). This award recognizes scientists who have made "considerable contributions to knowledge, and whose future work promises a continuing legacy of scientific excellence."  This award acknowledges Dr. Falkowski's contributions to our understanding of aquatic photosynthesis and nutrient uptake from molecular mechanisms to global patterns of biogeochemical cycling.

  Carr is acting dean
  Dr. Michael J. Carr will serve as Faculty of Arts and Sciences Associate Dean for the Physical Sciences during the Spring 2000 term. He is subsitituting for Dean Robert Wilson, who will be on sabbatical. Dr. Ken Miller will be acting department chair during Dr. Carr's deanship.

  Withjack joins faculty
  Dr. Martha Oliver Withjack will join the faculty on January 1, 2000. Dr. Withjack is an expert on experimental modeling of geological structures, seismic expression of structural styles, and extensional tectonics. Martha received her B.A. in mathematics and geology from Rutgers University (Douglass College) in 1973 and her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1977. She has worked as a research geologist for Cities Service Company, ARCO Oil and Gas Company, and Mobil Technology Company.

  Katz and others find source of global warming event 55 million years ago
  For the first time, a team of scientists has identified the possible methane release site and critical sequence of events that precipitated Earth's bout with global warming and the extinction of many deep-sea species and appearance of new mammalian orders more than 55 million years ago. In an article published in the Nov. 19, 1999 issue of the journal Science, lead author Miriam Katz, a doctoral candidate in geology at Rutgers; Kenneth G. Miller, Rutgers professor of geology; and two associates provide further support for previous research linking these dramatic events to the massive release of methane and carbon dioxide into the Earth's oceans and atmosphere, not unlike the present input of fossil fuels into the environment. 

  Miller and NJ Coastal Plain Drilling Project complete 6th drill hole
  The Ocean View Site (September and October 1999) was the sixth continuously cored borehole drilled as part of the New Jersey Coastal Plain Drilling Project and the third site drilled as part of ODP Leg 174AX, complementing shelf drilling by Leg 174A.  Located between the Leg 150X Atlantic City and Cape May Sites, drilling at Ocean View (39° 10' 43.826" N, 74° 43' 31.643" W; elevation 9.4 ft; Sea Isle City, NJ7.5 minute quadrangle, Dennis Township, Cape May County, NJ) targeted upper Miocene through middle Eocene sequences.  Recovery was very good (mean recovery, 81%; median recovery, 91%), ending at a total depth of 1575 ft in lowermost middle Eocene sediments.  A full suite of slimline logs was obtained to 1123 ft, and a gamma log was obtained to 1560 ft.  The on-site scientific team provided preliminary descriptions of sedimentary textures, structures, colors, fossil content and identified lithostratigraphic units, lithologic contacts, and sequences (unconformity-bounded units).  Age correlations presented here are still tentative because only minimal biostratigraphic studies were conducted onsite and only 4 Sr-isotopic ages have been generated as of early November 1999.  Ongoing biostratigraphic (planktonic foraminiferal, nannofossil, diatom, and dinocyst) and Sr-isotopic studies of the numerous shell beds found at Ocean View should provide excellent age control. *** The NJ Coastal Plain Drilling Project is headed by Dr. Ken Miller.

  Clifton awarded NSF post-doctoral fellowship
  Amy Clifton has received a highly competitive National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship to study active tectonics in Iceland. Amy will begin the post-doc after completing a Fulbright Fellowship, also in Iceland. Amy is completing a Ph.D. thesis on oblique rifting with Dr. Roy Schlische.

  Deocampo receives "Seed Grant"
  Daniel Deocampo is the recipient of a "Seed Grant" from the Purdue Rare Isotope Measurement Lab to support AMS radiocarbon analyses for a project titled "Timing of the Onset of Holocene Aridity in East Africa from Lake-Margin Groundwater Wetlands." Deocampo is a Ph.D. candidate working with Dr. Gail Ashley.

  Lanci joins research staff
  Dr. Luca Lanci is a new research scientist in the geology department. Luca, who previously was at the ETH in Switzerland, will help set up and run Dr. Dennis Kent's new paleomagnetics lab.

  Bolge and Clifton chair AGU sessions
  Graduate students Louise Bolge and Amy Clifton chaired sessions at the American Geophysical Union in Boston June 1-4, 1999. Louise presided at a poster session on the physical and chemical dynamics of subduction. Amy co-convened a special session (with Chris Sorlein) on deformation associated with oblique rifting. Clifton and Roy Schlische presented talks in the special session.

  Bolge drills in Hawaii
  Louise Bolge spent part of May 1999 in Hawaii working with the Hawaiian Scientic Drilling Project. Louise is working on a geochemistry project with Dr. Mike Carr and Dr. Mark Feigenson.

  Whitlock wins Vinton Gwynn prize
  Jaime S. Whitlock has received the Vinton Gwynn Memorial Prize for the outstanding senior conducting a research project. Jaime recently completed a George Cook Scholars Project on "The Tectonic Geomorphology of the Molvik Graben, Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland" under the supervision of Amy Clifton. Jaime will be attending graduate school at Penn State in the fall.

  Clifton receives Fulbright fellowship
  Amy Clifton has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright fellowship. She will spend the next academic year in Iceland monitoring ground deformation associated with magma migration beneath the Hengill volcano. As part of her Ph.D. thesis on laboratory and field studies of oblique rifting (working with Dr. Roy Schlische), Amy has spent two field seasons in Iceland.

  Fankhauser receives NJGS internship
  Seth Fankhauser (class of 2000) has been awarded a 2-month summer internship with the N.J. Geological Survey to study arsenic contamination of groundwater in central New Jersey. Greg Herman (Ph.D. '97) and Don Monteverde (current Ph.D. candidate) are heading the project.

  Sheridan chairs Y2K NEGSA meeting
  Dr. Robert Sheridan is serving as general chairman of the Northeast Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America. The meeting will be held March 13-15, 2000 at the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick. We hope to see you at the meeting!

  Gaswirth receives best-paper award
  Stephanie Gaswirth recently won the best-student paper award presented by SEPM and funded by Mobil Technology Company. As part of the award, Stephanie received an all-expenses-paid trip to the AAPG Annual Meeting in San Antonio, where she presented her paper on the environmental geology of Raritan Bay. Stephanie completed her M.S. under the supervision of Dr. Gail Ashley, and has enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Colorado.

  Rutgers receives ACE cores
  In December 1998, Rutgers took delivery of 17,000 feet of core from the Newark basin. The cores belong to the Army Corps of Engineers, who drilled them as part of the Passaic River Diversionary Tunnel project. The cores cover the uppermost Triassic and Early Jurassic lava flows and sedimentary formations, and have previously been used to show the extrusive interval in the Newark basin has a very short duration, <600,000 years. The ACE cores at Rutgers complement the 22,000 feet of core obtained by the Newark Basin Coring Project headed by Dennis Kent and Paul Olsen. The NBCP cores will be arriving at Rutgers this summer. These new cores join several thousand feet of New Jersey margin cores drilled by Ken Miller and the NJ Geological Survey.  These coastal plain cores are a major resource for resolving the timing and scale of sea level changes initially deduced from seismic data by Peter Vailâs Exxon team.

  McGhee completes 2 more books
  Dr. George McGhee has published two new books: Theoretical Morphology, G. R. McGhee, 1998. Columbia University Press 378p., and The Complete Idiotâs Guide to Dinosaurs, J. Stevenson & G. R. McGhee, 1998.  Alpha Books, N.Y. 326p. McGhee is also the author of The Late Devonian Mass Extinction published by Columbia University Press is 1996.

  Falkowski receives Huntsman award
  Dr. Paul Falkowski received the A.G. Huntsman award for excellence in marine sciences.  This award was established by the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  Paulâs acceptance address was titled: ãThe Origin of Life and the Evolution of Bio-geochemical Cycles on Earth.ä

  Ashley serves as GSA President
  Dr. Gail Ashley served as President of the Geological Society of America for 1998-1999.  Gail is only the second woman to head GSA and the first member of our department to hold the top position at a major national society.  Gail has also been President of Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) and is editor of the Journal of Sedimentary Research.

  Caruso and Clifton hold Bunting-Cobb fellowships
  Graduate students Amy Clifton and Nicole Caruso received Bunting-Cobb fellowships.  The Bunting-Cobb program is a residential fellowship in which graduate students mentor Douglass College undergraduates who are planning a career in science.